Five years singlehanding now. A couple years in I finally started practicing sailing in and out of the marina and onto/off anchor. I had become comfortable handling the boat and knew I needed to add those skills the the quiver. Realizing this mainly from reading this invaluable forum and the wise words of experience from folks like you.

Since then, sailing in because of mechanical issues has occurred twice and to anchor has occured twice. Each time I made the needed repairs myself and continued on my wandering. Oops... except this time I reached out for assistance in fueldelivery. It was going to be several days on a lee shore with a fresh breeze and didn't have the confidence I wouldn't end up on the bird sanctuary at Egmont.

I'm modestly proud of my independence in this lifestyle. This forum has played an important role in developing that independence.

No it's not just you. They can't predict the squalls. Motored all night from Key West, not even a teaspoon of breeze. Didn't even have the sail covers off. Around dawn looked ahead towards some of the blackest sky I could remember. We were just starting to get VHFreception and heard that a band of severe weather was heading NE. Turned the boat around to head S, didn't help. We went from 0 kt to 45 kt gusting to 50 in a matter of minutes. Stuck in that doo doo for 3 hrs.

In the Key West trip winds were forecast as easterly 10-15 kt. What we got was 20-30 right on the nose out the south.

Fortunately my boat can handle that but for us on board it was not fun.

Edit: if I had my radar turned on, I would have seen it much earlier and perhaps avoided it. But it was so dead out there, I figured why waste the power. Mistake on my part. I had the tools and didn't use them. Power consumption was irrelevant because I was motoring. My bad. But of course I added to my experience level. 🙀
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Water I don't worry about for coastal. The tank under the v-berth holds 80 gal and the tank under the cabin sole holds 100 gal. Personally, I'd prefer a little less water and touch more fuel (50 gal). This is why I'm thinking of converting the head to FW.

Two friends and I were returning from one such camping trip, our stores were exhausted because, it was a return trip and Fireballs are built for racing, not gear carrying.

We left our campsite in the 30 000 islands at checkout around 11. Around noon the wind just died. Of course a Fireball is engineless but at the same time is too big to paddle effectively. We just floated in the hot sun all day and over night until the wind picked up in the early am. There is no shelter on a FB, or even any comfortable seats. The water on Georgian Bay is better for drinking than tap water in much of the world, but it was a long uncomfortable over night in a small uncomfortable racingdinghy.

One day, when I can afford to, I'll renew my passport and head to the Bahamas, I hope.

You'll get there! For what it's worth, the Bahamas were actually pretty cheap. I mean, everything was expensive, but I was so shocked at the prices that I barely spent any money and lived off of what I brought with me, all bought at Sam's Club

Two friends and I were returning from one such camping trip, our stores were exhausted because, it was a return trip and Fireballs are built for racing, not gear carrying.

We left our campsite in the 30 000 islands at checkout around 11. Around noon the wind just died. Of course a Fireball is engineless but at the same time is too big to paddle effectively. We just floated in the hot sun all day and over night until the wind picked up in the early am. There is no shelter on a FB, or even any comfortable seats. The water on Georgian Bay is better for drinking than tap water in much of the world, but it was a long uncomfortable over night in a small uncomfortable racing dinghy.

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It's been a lot of years but enjoyed my time in Georgian Bay on board my father's cruiser. I probably will misspell it but we stayed at Tobermarie. Lots of rocks, ice cold water, beautiful scenery, and great fishing.